Toll Bros. Inc. has appealed last month’s Common Pleas Court decision upholding Westtown Township’s denial of conditional use approval for a proposed development of Crebilly Farm. Toll’s attorney Gregg Adelman said briefs explaining the grounds for the appeal would be filed in Commonwealth Court “in the near future.”
Chester County Common Pleas Court Judge Mark L. Tunnell heard Toll’s appeal of the township’s decision on Sept. 17 and issued his decision on Oct. 1. He cited four reasons for upholding the decision. Those issues include the developer’s failure to include a collector road, that Toll failed to show how it would mitigate traffic at Routes 202 and 926, that it failed to show alternative access points and did not account for conservation design standards.
Westtown Township supervisors held conditional use hearings on the proposed project — building 319 homes on the 320-acre farm — throughout 2017 and released their verbal decision in December. The written decision came out in February and Toll appealed to Common Pleas.
The full story on Tunnell’s denial can be found here.
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
Edgar Leon Willis, 94, of West Chester, formerly of West Grove, died Saturday, Oct. 20, at the Pocopson Home. He was the husband of Carol McCleary Willis who died in 2003, and with whom he shared 20 years of marriage.
Born in West Grove, he was the son of the late Water Willis and the late Frances Bryan Willis.
He was a machine operator at Hewlett-Packard, Avondale, for more than 25 years, retiring in 1997. After his retirement, he worked as a security guard at several places, including the Pocopson Home. He was also a part-time police officer in the boroughs of West Grove and Avondale.
He was a graduate of Avon Grove High School. Upon graduation, he enlisted in the US Army, with the 3940thQ.M. gasoline company stationed in Germany, France, England and Normandy, as a gas tank/truck operator.
Mr. Willis was a lifetime member and a past assistant chief at the West Grove Fire Company (75 years), where he was the oldest living member and also a lifetime member of the Avondale Fire Company. A member of the Chester County Fireman’s Association, where he served as the treasurer for many years and a charter member of the VFW Post 5467 in Kennett Square.
He enjoyed family picnics/dinners and picking on everyone including the staff at Pocopson Home.
The family would like to extend their sincere thanks to the staff at Pocopson Home for all they did for him. They were his adopted family.
He is survived by one son, Charles L. Willis; one daughter, Betty Kramer (Glenn Quillin) of Oxford; one step-son, Richard Eller (Rose )of New Castle, Del.; one sister, Helen Carlin of West Grove; 10 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.
He was predeceased by one brother and two sisters.
You are invited to visit with his family and friends from 9 to 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 27, at the Kuzo & Grieco Funeral Home, 250 West State Street, Kennett Square, PA. His Funeral service will follow at 11:30. Burial will be in Oxford Cemetery, Route 10, Oxford.
In lieu of flowers, a contribution may be made to the West Grove, Fire Co., P.O. Box 201, West Grove, PA 19390.
To view his online tribute or to share a memory with his family, please visit www.griecocares.com
Helen C. Dietze, formerly of Chadds Ford, died suddenly on Aug. 21.
Helen C. Dietze
Helen was born in Durham, N.C. in 1929 on the eve of the Great Depression. The youngest daughter of a Methodist minister, she moved to a new parish every few years – from Durham, to Dunn, then Beaufort, Sanford, New Bern, Siler City, Andalusia, Benson, and later Greensboro and Chapel Hill — accumulating lifelong friends along the way. Like her mother who held Masters Degrees in Latin and Greek, Helen had a heightened intellectual curiosity and remained, throughout her life, a voracious learner, completing high school at fifteen and going on to graduate from the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina in 1949 at only nineteen.
She married her first husband, the late L. Brandt Allen with whom she had two sons, L. Brandt Allen, Jr. and H. Gordon Allen, and joined the large and lively Allen family. Widowed at twenty-nine, she later married her second husband, the late Richard H. Dietze, with whom she shared a daughter Jane A. Dietze.
Besides her passion for education, Helen loved to travel. In 1968, the family moved from Gladwyn, Pennsylvania to Tokyo, Japan, where they lived for several years as expatriates with the Dupont Company. They immersed themselves in the local culture, traveling throughout Japan and Asia before moving back to the United States to Wilmington, Delaware. Helen lived in Wilmington (and later Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania) for 27 years. In Wilmington, Helen founded and filled (through numerous trips to England and Scotland) an English antique store and later worked as a real estate agent. From her Wilmington home base, she traveled frequently and remained agile by continuing her studies in art history and French, playing tennis, skiing, sailing the Chesapeake on the family’s 32-foot sloop Kona, cultivating an enormous vegetable garden, and baking hundreds of applesauce cakes for Christmas gifts. She was an inveterate collector of Chinese export porcelain and plastic bags. She was a member of Greenville Country Club, the Junior League of Wilmington, Delaware, and a parishioner of Christ Church in Wilmington.
When Helen was widowed a second time with the loss of her husband Richard, she established herself as a contributor to the global community. She worked in Thailand with Save the Children, aiding Laotian refugees. In 1993, at the age of sixty-five, she joined the Peace Corps and moved to Pobè, Benin in north-west Africa where she supported local communities in eradicating the guinea worm parasite from their water supplies.
After three years in French-speaking Africa, Helen moved to Aix-en-Provence for two years to continue her French language study and indulge her Francophilia. Upon returning to Chadds Ford, she persisted in her efforts, unsuccessfully, to supplant her elegant southern accent with a French one through French language immersion at Middlebury College for two summers. With her heavy southern drawl, Helen taught English to recent immigrants and, unflaggingly curious, spent many seasons studying abroad in Florence, Italy, at the Sorbonne in Paris, and at Oxford University in England. In 2002, Helen relocated to Washington, DC to be near her granddaughters, then relocated again in 2006 to New York City with them. In both Washington and Manhattan, Helen often accompanied her granddaughters to playdates, led them on outings to the many museums, and authoritatively taught the girls proper table manners. In New York, as in all her other homes, Helen made lifelong friends and boldly took part in the culture of the city – visiting art museums, attending the symphony, theater, and the opera.
Helen settled in Providence, Rhode Island in 2014, once again to be near her daughter and grandchildren. She worked out three days a week with a personal trainer and attended outings to the theater and symphony among other events. Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, she participated in several medical studies in an effort to find a cure.
She is survived by her children, L. Brandt Allen, Jr., H. Gordon Allen, and Jane A. Dietze, her beloved granddaughters Emerson Rains and Hayden Rains, her daughters-in-law Paula Allen and Robin Rains, and her many nieces and nephews.
She was a magnificent woman, always full for life. We miss her.
The following animals are ready to be adopted from the Brandywine Valley SPCA in West Chester.
Corky
Corky
Corky brings the party with him. He’s an upbeat, fun pooch who loves all the people he meets and enjoys playing with other playful dogs in playgroups. This 3-year-old would make a great family dog in a home without cats. Corky qualifies for the “Find Your New Boo” Halloween special to adopt any large adult dog (1-year-old or older and 40 or more pounds) for just $1 through Nov. 4.
Gingersnap
Gingersnap
Gingersnap is a classic orange tabby – a big cuddly bundle of love. He’s very affectionate and enjoys lap time and being held. This 4-year old should do well with another easy going cat or as an only kitty. Gingersnap qualifies for the “Find Your New Boo” Halloween special to adopt any adult cat (6 months old or older) for just $1 through Nov. 4.
For more information, go to www.bvspca.org or phone 484-302-0865.
